Re:I'm Not Convinced the AI Bubble Exists
by kalaksi on Monday November 09, 2026 @02:58AM
(#50422476)
> PS: this is something electric car proponents don't talk much about. In France, we're getting a "car weight tax" too (https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F3...).
I hope trucks transporting fuel for ICEs get equal treatment.
Re:I'm Not Convinced the AI Bubble Exists
by BoingBoomTschak on Monday November 09, 2026 @02:59AM
(#50422493)
Are you stupid? This is to steer consumer choice. The truck doesn't have the choice to be heavy or not.
Also, I just learned that this law doesn't concern fully electric vehicles yet...
Re:I'm Not Convinced the AI Bubble Exists
by RugnirViking on Monday November 09, 2026 @04:54AM
(#50423411)
worth noting that many electric cars weigh 2 tons or thereabout, like the car in your example. internal combustion cars tend to be lighter than that
Re:I'm Not Convinced the AI Bubble Exists
by rolfus on Monday November 09, 2026 @05:24AM
(#50423666)
The rule you linked to basically shows that whether a car weights 1.5 tonnes or 2 tonnes (an EV version of a car model usually weight about 25-30% more) is completely irrelevant to road damage when you have heavy freight using the road as well. The single 30 tonne truck from the example above gives the equivalent road wear to 15 thousand 2-tonne EV's.
"The fourth power law (also known as the fourth power rule) is a rule of thumb which states that the damage to the road caused by a motor vehicle increases in proportion to the fourth power of its axle load. This law was discovered in the course of a series of scientific experiments in the United States in the late 1950s and was decisive for the development of standard construction methods in road construction."
"Example: Car (total weight 2 tonnes, 2 axles): load per axle: 1 tonnes vs Truck (total weight 30 tonnes, 3 axles): load per axle: 10 tonnes. [...] The resulting damage differential between truck and car is 15,000 to 1"
PS: this is something electric car proponents don't talk much about. In France, we're getting a "car weight tax" too (https://www.service-public.gouv.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F3...).